The Green Hat · Chapter
The Green Hat explained
The narrator introduces the titular green hat as the first and last thing he saw of Iris Storm.
What happens
The narrator introduces the titular green hat as the first and last thing he saw of Iris Storm. He describes his former residence in Shepherd's Market, a lane of petty crime and colorful characters, before recounting his first encounter with Iris. She arrives at his flat looking for her twin brother Gerald, who is drunk and passed out. The narrator is struck by her enigmatic, unplaceable nature—she defies categorization by class, nationality, or convention. After a brief, charged interaction, she leaves, asking him to tell Gerald she came. The chapter establishes the narrator's fascination and bewilderment with Iris, setting the stage for the story of Gerald March and Iris Storm.
Themes in this chapter
Appearance vs. Reality
Iris Storm presents a conventional exterior but defies easy categorization, embodying a disconnect between how she appears and who she truly is.
Modernity and Alienation
The narrator feels profoundly incapable and alienated in Iris's presence, reflecting the modern sense of disconnection and the inability to 'place' others.
Social Class and Decadence
The contrast between the squalid lane of Shepherd's Market and the polite address of Mayfair highlights class tensions, while Gerald's drunkenness and Iris's unconventionality suggest decadence.
Characters to notice
- Iris March
Introduced as Mrs. Storm, she arrives at the narrator's flat wearing a green hat. She is Gerald's twin sister, enigmatic and unplaceable, with a quiet but powerful presence. She asks the narrator to tell Gerald she came.
- Gerald March
Gerald is drunk and passed out on the narrator's table when Iris arrives. He is her twin brother, and the narrator notes the strained relationship between them.
- Hilary Townshend
Mentioned as having told Iris about the narrator, and as someone who also felt a sense of incapability with Iris.
- Napier Harpenden
Briefly mentioned in the context of the narrator's social circle, but not directly present in the chapter.
Key passages
“She was, in that phrase of Mr. Conrad’s which can mean so little or so much—she was of all time. She was, when the first woman crawled out of the mud of the primeval world. She would be, when the last woman walks towards the unmentionable end.”
Iris seemed timeless and universal, as if she belonged to every era, from the dawn of humanity to its end.
The narrator uses Conrad's phrase to express Iris's transcendent, unclassifiable nature.
“You had a conviction, a rather despairing one, that she didn’t fit in anywhere, to any class, nay, to any nationality.”
You felt hopelessly certain that she belonged to no social class or country.
Highlights the narrator's struggle to categorize Iris, a central theme of the chapter.
“She gave you a sense of the conventions; but she gave you—unaware always, impersonal always, and those cool, sensible eyes!—a much deeper sense that she was somehow outside the comic, squalid, sometimes almost fine laws by which we judge as to what is and what is not conventional.”
She appeared conventional, but her cool, impersonal eyes suggested she existed beyond the rules of society.
Illustrates the duality of Iris's character, blending conventionality with a radical independence.